The Future Of Driving Revealed At CES 2014

Among other automotive innovations, this year’s CES will showcase vehicles with alternative fuel, self-driving vehicles and car internal connectivity

While normal car shows present visitors with what they will be able to purchase from the stores next year, CES presents cars we will be driving by 2020. CES 2014 will offer the automakers the opportunity to show their newest tech concepts and innovations.

At last year’s CES, Audi and Lexus announced their work on autonomous vehicles. This year, Audi will show at CES the car that will drop off passengers and look for parking on its own. The hardware that makes it possible, including a compact sensor array, was already displayed at the last year’s CES. Their sensor array is much smaller than what Google cars have on top of their autonomous vehicles.

Ford is also planning to show technology that will eventually produce autonomous vehicles. The company production vehicles already contain features such as lane-keeping assistance and adaptive cruise control. Ford is also planning to show at CES how their inter-car and car-to-infrastructure communication, called V2X, is capable of alerting a driver about another car's movement, while the other car is not visible yet.

Mercedes-Benz is planning on offering demonstrations on real world autonomous driving with their Steering Assist system, already available in the new S550 model.

Delphi has been also working on technologies for autonomous cars, and will present at CES Tesla Model S, which has "Autopilot" technology.

Toyota will present at CES a number of electric vehicles, probably including its recently released Rav4 EV. Their most important exhibit will be Toyota’s Fuel Cell Vehicle Concept unveiled at the November’s Tokyo Motor Show.

OnStar, linked to GM, will bring to CES 2014 the new Chevrolet Corvette to show how the data-driven features integrate into the car. According to one rumor, OnStar will be using an App Shop feature built into the cars, allowing owners to select apps they want.